Today’s Chart of the Day comes from chartr with data provided by the United Nations.
India is set to overcome China in population this year, and China is set to shrink in half by 2100. It will be interesting to see how a modern society handles a loss of population over a long time frame, as opposed to other, more sudden losses due to war or diseases.
Since 2005, Japan is on a similar path with a shrinking population. So far, they have struggled with how to deal with fewer people of working age.
Luckily, we are in the early age of robots, artificial intelligence, and automation, which may soften the impact.